Julie and Ken a young couple trying to save their marriage copulate in the forest, under the watchful eye of Lonny. Lonny lives in a log cabin alone with some unusual and familiar company in his cellar. His childhood was a sad picture of incest and abuse living with his sister Delia, who he loved, and a tyrannical and abusive father Nathaniel..."a big man tall, broad-shouldered, thick -limbed who looks like a brute at the best of times." With Delia dead Lonny believes in his own twisted and disturbed mind that by sacrificing lives he can bring Delia back to life.

This is quite a clever little story part 80's horror incorporated with the flavour of a well known nursery rhyme concerning a young girl along in the forest and a big bad wolf...."The cold fluttering that she'd felt in the woods started up again. After all, she was alone, in the middle of the forest-at night no less- in the cabin of a strange man who from the look of things lived like a monk." Indeed the author invokes the image of Icarus in the final pages who forgot his father's warnings and dared to fly too close to the sun on wings of feathers and wax."

So if you appreciate biblical legends, remember with fondness early European fairy tales, crave the company of Freddy Krueger, and enjoy singing along to Dueling Banjos then quite possibly you will love A Kiss of Thorns but beware...if you go down to the woods today!